All Feminine Hell Breaks Loose in Doechii’s ‘Crazy’ New Music Video
RadicalMedia’s C Prinz, part of directing trio sportscar, has joined forces with rapper and singer Doechii to forge an untamed and unforgettable new music video for her latest single ‘Crazy’. Teeming with female nudity, gun violence, and unfiltered emotion, the video tackles taboos surrounding women in the 21st century.
The video opens dramatically with a nude Doechii shooting another woman in the head in an abandoned warehouse. Chaotic to its core, this sense of wildness continues throughout the film, which sees women smashing cars with baseball bats and dancing fiercely in formation dressed only in thigh-high leather boots, as well Doechii putting out a cigarette on her own arm. As the action escalates, a car is set alight, women fighting, running, and dancing in its orange glow. Suddenly, we cut to the first scene again, with Doechii shooting the woman once more - only this time, we realise that she is shooting herself.
To craft the film, C Prinz collaborated closely with Doechii and label Top Dawg Entertainment on the creative direction, wanting to dissect the intricacies of women-on-women violence. Drawing from a decade of experience in the industry, C Prinz and Doechii wanted to reflect on the fact that some of the harshest moments they had suffered had come from other women, in reaction to a feeling that there wasn’t enough room for all of them. Pushing back against that notion, the team wanted the video to convey the thesis that when one woman suffers, so do they all. Using the revelation that Doechii was shooting herself all along, the video seals in this idea, showing that at the end of the day, women are in it together.
The music video was shot on several different cameras, sometimes simultaneously, in order to complete the whole shoot in a single day. For the beginning and end, C Prinz had originally pitched a SnorriCam, so DP Mika Altskan reached out to the inventor himself to find out if he had anything new for them to play with - and he did. Doechii was given a rig to wear that could allow the traditional SnorriCam capabilities, while also being able to push and turn the camera on two other axes. This never-before-used equipment allowed Mika to transcend the dimensional possibilities of the scenes, making the viewer feel like they are inside a video game.
Taking responsibility to respectfully depict such stigmatised and triggering imagery, namely female nudity and point blank gun violence, the shoot had to be approached with sensitivity. Field Trip producers Eli Raskin, Cole Santiago, and Nance Messineo strived to bring the creative vision to life while also cultivating a safe environment for such intensity to exist in a non-threatening way. C Prinz also ensured that the teams involved remained mindful of how the content would be perceived, knowing how quickly viewers could misinterpret its shock-value as gratuitous. To combat this, C Prinz worked to make the core message clear, transforming the piece into a springboard for reflection and debate on the way challenging ideas make us feel.
C Prinz comments: “The idea for a project about power, self-realisation, and self-actualisation had been forming in me for a long time, and hearing the track brought it to the surface. It's a film about women surviving and ultimately rising in this world - I come from choreography, so I often see things in terms of bodies moving in relation to the rules of their space. When I pitched the idea, I didn’t think it would get the green light - it would be too dark, too aggressive, too masculine - but Doechii and Top Dawg Entertainment ran with it and allowed me to go even darker. From that day on for the next four months, Doechii and I worked closely to interweave her personal story inside of this beautiful hell.”
She adds: “I am unbelievably humbled and endlessly inspired by every single person in the cast and crew that showed up with their endless energy and levity - this film is what it is because of their openness and willingness to trust and try. Similarly to how I feel about every department head on this project, DP Mika Altskan's willingness to work with me unconditionally, day and night, for two weeks straight was beyond the job description. His constant challenging of the idea every single day in a new way was truly inspiring. ”
